4 March, 2015 Health News

Do you ever wonder if some medical tests and treatments are really needed? It turns out plenty of them aren't. Here are five instances where experts believe your knowledge and awareness can help reduce unnecessary interventions.

This week's top health stories

AM - 04/03/2015If you're waking yourself up with a coffee this morning, you might be happy to know that a good dose of caffeine might actually help you avoid heart disease. That's what Korean researchers claim to have discovered during a study of 25,000 working age men and women. They say those people that drank three to five cups of coffee a day are less likely to show the early signs of heart disease.

PM - 03/03/2015The Prime Minister has accepted some of the responsibility for failing to get enough support for the Government's GP co-payment policy. The Government's officially dumped the plan, but will keep in place a freeze on the rebates paid to doctors and specialists. The Opposition has questioned whether the Government can be trusted, given the Government's already had several version of its co-payment policy.

PM - 03/03/2015The American mental health advocate Kevin Hines started hearing voices in his head when he was a young boy, he says they persisted in his late teens, driving him to jump from San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge. Amazingly he survived the fall and is telling his story to help others.

The World Today - 03/03/2015The Federal Government has dumped its latest plan for an optional $5 co-payment for GP services, after months of lobbying by doctors and community groups. The new Health Minister Sussan Ley has been consulting over the future of the policy, and will today confirm that the co-payment won't go ahead.

The World Today - 03/03/2015Three separate inquiries into abuse of disabled people in institutions and residential care have now been announced. There'll be a Victorian parliamentary inquiry, one by the Victorian ombudsman and a national Senate inquiry.

Science Online - 03/03/2015Half the lineages of the main type of human immunodeficiency virus, HIV-1, originated in gorillas in Cameroon before infecting people, probably via bushmeat hunting, a new study has found.

AM - 03/03/2015The construction industry is known as a high risk one when it comes to workplace accidents. But a lesser known fact about construction is the high rate to suicide. A construction worker is six times more likely to suicide than die of a workplace incident. Industry representatives and suicide prevention experts will meet in Sydney this week to try and address the problem.

7.30 Report - 02/03/2015Eating disorders like anorexia nervosa afflict nearly a million Australians each year, and a third are young men, so there are calls for a national campaign to address the issue and the nearly $20 billion the disorders are estimated to cost the economy.

7.30 Report - 02/03/2015Business leader speaks for the first time about her battle with anorexia nervosa and is calling for Australia to take notice of the issue, as other women share their personal stories.

PM - 02/03/2015Just when the Ebola outbreak in West Africa seemed to be getting under control, there's been an increase in the number of cases in Sierra Leone. Stricter travel restrictions have been introduced and the country's vice president has placed himself in quarantine after one of his guards died from the disease. The numbers of cases and deaths has dropped dramatically since the peak last year, but the aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontiers warns the outbreak is most certainly not over.